The present invention belongs to a technical field of hard copies such as photographic prints and printed sheets. In particular, the present invention relates to a hard copy producing method and a hard copy producing device capable of providing a high-quality hard copy suitably expressing image texture, three-dimensionality, and so on, and a hard copy.
Various proposals have been made to improve textural expression of photographic prints, prints produced by a variety of printers, etc., so as to produce highly value-added products.
For example, JP 3-190778 A discloses a thermal printer device using a transfer sheet with sublimable dye applied thereon, which records an image by re-heating the image through an area formed on the transfer sheet with a material different from the sublimable dye such that the image becomes desirably glossy or matte.
Also, JP 8-39841 A discloses a method of producing prints with a thermal transfer printing device, where an object is photographed under two conditions, with a large amount of light reflection and a small amount of light reflection, and a signal obtained with small light reflection is subtracted from a signal obtained with large light reflection to generate a gloss signal. Also, a print is produced with an image signal generated by photographing the object with the same image pickup means and the produced print is re-heated according to the gloss signal, whereby the gloss can be expressed at will in conformity with the glossiness of the printed image.
The two techniques both produce higher-quality prints by processing the print surface to provide it with glossiness and non-glossiness in conformity with the image. However, a change of print surface properties causes light reflection characteristics to vary, which varies a viewed image density, or an apparent image density.
Therefore, the viewed image color/density differs from that of the original image, resulting in adverse effects such as quality deterioration and unnaturalness of the image. Thus, though the textural expression of the image is improved, the image quality may be deteriorated.